STRASBURG DECLARATION FOR THE RATIFICATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

We citizens, parliamentarians and NGOs representatives from all over Europe convened, for the launch of the "Ratification Now Campaign", at the European Parliament in Strasburg, on the initiative of No Peace Without Justice and the Radical Party for the Pan European Forum on the ratification of the ICC and the need of effective international juridictions, on the 19th and the 20th of November 1998:

A. welcome the adoption in Rome, on July 17, 1998 by 120 votes to 7 with 21 abstentions, of the statutes of the permanent International Criminal Court for war crimes, acts of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Thanks to this decision of epoch-making significance, for the first time an international court will be empowered to try those charged with the above crimes in full independence, even where is no specific political mandate from the Security Council. The new court will have an independent prosecutor and will also be empowered to try crimes committed in the context of internal conflicts; it will act on a complementary basis together with national courts, but it will be for the latter to determine the respective spheres of competence where there is a conflict of juridiction.

Hoping that those countries which have not acceded to the statutes approved in Rome have the chance to review their position and associate themselves with this new move by the international community to enforce respect for the rules of international law,

Welcoming the resolution adopted by the European Parliament on the 19th November and endorsing its recommandations,

we call all countries, and on the EU Member States and the Members of the Council of Europe as a matter of urgency:

- where they have not signed the Rome agreement, to do so by the end of 1998, thus recognising the juridiction of the court from the outset;

- to make the signature and the ratification of the Rome agreement a priority in their international relations;

- not to resort to the 'opt-out' clause (Article 124) for war crimes;

- to make every effort within each of the relevant bodies to ensure that the preparatory commission is in place as soon as possible and is able to hold a sufficient number of meetings to allow it to complete the remaining technical tasks and drawn up the Court's rules of procedure and criteria for proof by 30 June 2000;

- to make every effort to convince those countries which have not acceded to the court's statutes to agree to accept its binding juridiction;

We invite those States which have already signed and which will sign the Rome agreement to ratify it as soon as possible, so as to enable the court to commence its activities no later than 31 December 2000 and commit ourselves to do our utmost to achieve this goal.

B. We are convinced that the effectiveness of international justice, and in particular the International Criminal Court on former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in investigating, and eventually sentencing and detaining the perpetros of the most heinous crimes that have been committed in that region in the last years, is vital to reinforcing the credibility not only of the Tribunal itself, but also of the ICC future activity;

Therefore we also invite citizens all over the world to support the initiative of the Radical Party for the indictement of Slobodan Milosevic before the ICTY, and to sign the appeal already endorsed by 70.000 citizens, including 500 parliamentarians from all over the world.